On the one hand, Mr. Krauthammer suggests that more aggressive psychiatric
intervention might make a difference; and on the other he states that Roseburg shooter Christopher Harper-Mercer "had no psychiatric
diagnosis beyond Asperger's."

First, apparently Mr. Krauthammer missed the memo that Asperger's is no longer a
psychiatric diagnosis - it was voted out of the latest version of
the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual (DSM-5), published in May 2013. Many people
don't realize that so-called mental disorders are voted in or voted
out of American psychiatry's "bible," not scientifically discovered
or undiscovered. Another prominent example of a so-called mental
disorder going the way of the dodo by popular vote of American
psychiatrists is homosexuality, first included in, then excluded
from the DSM. Referring to the DSM-5, Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of
the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), declared,"The
weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart
disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a
consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective
laboratory measure... Patients with mental disorders deserve
better... That is why NIMH will be re-orienting its research away
from DSM categories." (
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml
)

American psychiatry's inability to determine with scientific clarity
what does or does not constitute a mental disorder is compounded by
the fact that the United States is one of only two countries in the
world, New Zealand being the other, that allows direct-to-consumer
advertising by pharmaceutical companies. Big Pharma does such a
good job of disease-mongering -- often inventing then selling a
disorder and creating then funding corresponding "grassroots"
advocacy groups (aka "astroturfing") in order to sell their drugs --
that it makes it difficult to take back a mental disorder once it
has been invented and sold to the American public.

The first and most obvious flaw with the wishful thinking that more
aggressive psychiatric intervention might make a difference (read
prevent) mass shootings in America is that American psychiatry
cannot reliably define what a mental disorder is, let alone agree
upon and recommend its efficacious treatment.

Second, Mr. Krauthammer can't possibly know for a fact that Mr. Harper-Mercer's only
psychiatric diagnosis was Asperger's. This is a classic example of
jumping to conclusions, based on a report of out-of-context online
posts by a relative. It has also been reported that Mr.
Harper-Mercer's online alias was "Lithium_love." It should be noted
that if in fact Mr. Harper-Mercer was taking lithium, that drug is
indicated for Bipolar Disorder, not Asperger's (or Autism Spectrum
Disorder/ASD). So if Mr. Harper-Mercer was prescribed lithium, he
was either diagnosed with Bipolar, or the drug was prescribed to him
off-label. To be sure, off-label prescribing, as well as
polypharmacy (ie. prescribing multiple drugs), is rampant in
American psychopharmacology, a symptom of the shoot first aim later,
trial and error prescribing habits of an industry that has a tough
time defining mental illness, much less deciding on how to
effectively treat it. The reality is we will probably never know
the extent of Mr. Harper-Mercer's psychiatric diagnoses, or the
name, number and doses of the psychotropic medications prescribed to
treat them.

The suggestion that the aforementioned mass shooters were not
receiving psychiatric care, and if only they had access to needed
psychiatric care then perhaps the tragedies might have been averted,
is misleading. The problem is that in America -- where doctors are
paid handsome consulting fees by pharmaceutical companies to pitch
their drugs to other doctors, and where the pharmaceutical industry
spends approximately $230M per year to influence Congress --
psychiatric care has become synonymous with psychotropic drugging.

The earlier choice of the words "in recent history" was not
accidental, because this tragic mass shooting phenomenon has only
been recent in America's history, since the clock tower shooter
Charles Whitman (Valium, Dexedrine) killed 16 people on the
University of Texas campus. In an upcoming documentary, Dr. Jean
Stolzer points out that "guns
have always been in this country since the first Europeans
stepped on American shores." (see also
https://leoniefennell.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/the-systemic-correlation-between-psychiatric-medications-and-unprovoked-mass-murder-in-america2.pdf
) Likewise, President Obama has pointed out: "The United States
does not have a monopoly on crazy people. It's not the only country
that has psychosis. And yet we kill each other in these mass
shootings at rates that are exponentially higher than any place
else. Well, what's the difference?" [NOTE: Most people missed the
fact that Mr. Obama's above response was to a question about mass
shootings posed via Tumblr by Nick Dineen, residential assistant to
UC Santa Barbara mass killing victim George Chen - whom the coroner
later determined was killed with a knife, not a gun, like two other
of Elliot Rodger's victims. Mr. Obama's response and Mr. Dineen's
question can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDVFs2l6-fo and the coroner's
findings that Mr. Chen, Weihan Wang, and Chen Hong each died of
multiple stab wounds can be viewed here:
http://www.sbsheriff.us/documents/ISLAVISTAINVESTIGATIVESUMMARY.pdf
. This demonstrates how jumping to conclusions based on initial
media reports can be problematic.]

Indeed, what's the difference? Neither guns or psychosis are new or
unique to America. So what has changed?

What has changed in America and what is unique to our country is the
alarming increase in the number of Americans taking psychotropic
drugs, which carry FDA-mandated label warnings of serious
psychiatric adverse events, including suicidal and homicidal
ideation.

Similarly, while Britain was banning antidepressants for kids due to
an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior associated with
the drugs, the FDA threatened the same medical reviewer, Dr. Andrew
Mosholder, with an internal investigation, and prevented him from
presenting his findings that the drugs doubled suicidality in kids
at a Pediatric Advisory Committee meeting (
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-108hhrg96099/html/CHRG-108hhrg96099.htm
).

According to the DSM-5,"Between 7 percent and 25 percent of individuals presenting with a first episode of psychosis in different settings are reported to have substance/medication-induced psychotic disorder."

Big Pharma invented and has successfully marketed the unproven
theory that mental illness is the result of a chemical imbalance in
the brain. Swallowing this marketing theory hook, line and sinker,
Americans are also swallowing psychotropic pills -- and shoveling
them into their children's mouths -- at rates dwarfing other
nations.

Ironically, there is evidence that psychotropic drugs derive their
action precisely by creating a chemical imbalance in the brain,
according to former NIMH Director Dr. Steven Hyman (
http://search.proquest.com/openview/5610c361a22516dda3dc72bb25f5371e/1?pq-origsite=gscholar
). Psychiatric medications, he wrote, "create perturbations in
neurotransmitter functions." The brain must then compensate to
adapt to "alterations in the environment." Chronic administration
of the drugs, he added, cause "substantial and long-lasting
alterations in neural function."

Referring to his own LSD trip, immediate past President of the APA,
Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, wrote: "My [LSD] trip did produce one lasting
insight, though--one that I remain grateful for to this day...I
marveled at the fact that [if] such an incredibly minute amount of a
chemical...could so dramatically alter my cognition, the chemistry
of the brain must be susceptible to pharmacologic manipulations in
other ways, including ways that could be therapeutic." (
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dj-jaffe/book-review-shrinks-the-u_b_6924810.html
)

We, as a nation, are reaping the fruits of this historically
unprecedented, massive-scale experimentation on the chemistry of the
human brain.

When most mass shooters were taking psychotropic drugs, it's an
insult to what's left of our collectively numbed intelligence to
suggest that more psychotropic drugs are the answer to mass
shootings. If psychotropic drugs were the answer, then the
astronomical increase in Americans' use of psychiatric drugs should
have led to a dramatic decrease in the number of mass shootings, not
an increase. Experience shows that more mental health treatment
with psychiatric drugs will lead to more mass murder, not less.

Take, for instance, the case of Bradley Stone. Not unlike Charlie
Gordon in Flowers for Algernon, Mr. Stone might once have been
considered a darling example of the shining success of mental health
diversion courts and Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) of the kind
advocated by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) in his proposed Helping Families
in Mental Health Crisis Act (HR 2646) - that is, until Mr. Stone
shot and chopped up seven people, before poisoning himself with the
Risperdal and Trazodone he was prescribed and then stabbing himself
( http://www.montcopa.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/2128 ). Or
there's Spc Ivan Lopez-Lopez who in the months preceding the second
deadly Ft. Hood shooting spree voluntarily met with a half dozen
Army mental health providers at Ft. Bliss, Ft. Leonard Wood, and Ft.
Hood on ten occasions, dutifully refilling prescriptions for
psychotropic medications ( http://www.pharmabuse.com/blogs/98 ).

At the very least, we know psychotropic drugs do not prevent mass
killings, since toxicology results for most of the aforementioned
dead mass shooters revealed the prescribed drugs were still in their
blood. Moreover, the FDA has received 765 reports of homicide as a
side effect of psychotropic drugs, many of which were multiple
homicides. Just as the now well-established link between
antidepressants and suicidality, which prompted a black box warning,
was once covered up, the extent of the temporal link between
psychotropic drugs and violence toward others has been concealed
from the American public. Now, thanks to a recent Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the FDA, we're
obtaining the relevant adverse event report records, and they will
be made public for the first time.

U.S. taxpayers should not spend more money on mental health programs
promising to prevent mass shooting tragedies, because such
undoubtedly costly programs, by the very nature of their promise,
would be fraudulent. If anything, Congress should investigate
whether psychotropic drugs, which have been demonstrated time and
time again as being incapable of preventing homicide, may actually
be living up to their scary label warnings.

The guns versus mental health debate is a red herring. They are two
sides of the same coin - emphasis on coin, as in money. The gun
lobby and the pharma lobby are a marriage made in heaven (or, more
aptly, hell). We're hearing from the gun lobby that more guns would
help victims protect themselves from psychotic mass shooters. We're
hearing from the pharma lobby that forced mental health treatment
with psychotropic drugs, which the mass shooters were already
voluntarily taking, would prevent mass shootings.

The only lobby seemingly letting a crisis go to waste is the
entertainment lobby. We haven't heard that more violent video games
and movies would prevent mass shootings -- yet.

When Republican Congressman Tim Murphy posted on Facebook that a stabbing and fatal shooting at Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Brooklyn a week before Hannukah was another preventable tragedy, some had doubts about his prescription to treat bigotry and
violence. Rep. Murphy, a psychologist, has prescribed his Helping
Families in Mental Health Crisis bill as a panacea for every societal
ill – from spree killings to suicide, homelessness and crime.

The violent attack at a Brooklyn synagogue came on the heels of the May 24, 2014 shooting spree that left four dead at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, and the March 19, 2012 shooting spree that left four dead at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse.

Toulouse killer Mohammad Merah, an Al-Qaeda militant, had been on a terror watch list since 2008 after being caught planting bombs in Afghanistan. Brussels killer Mehdi Nemmouche, an Islamic State militant, was identified by French journalist and former hostage Nicolas Henin as being one of his captors and torturers in Syria.

After casing the Brooklyn synagogue twice earlier in the evening, Calvin Peters charged into Chabad-Lubavitch in the early morning on December 9, 2014, stabbing 22 year-old Israeli student Levi Rosenblatt multiple times, before being shot dead by police. According to a Chabad-Lubavitch spokesperson, witnesses heard Peters shout repeatedly "Kill the Jews!"

Memories were still fresh from the April 13, 2014 Passover Eve shooting spree targeting the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and the Village Shalom retirement community in Overland Park, where neo-Nazi Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. opened fire, killing three. Miller, a white-supremacist and former Grand Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan in North Carolina, was reportedly heard yelling "Heil Hitler!" as he was taken into custody.

The Brooklyn synagogue attack was also reminiscent of the July 28, 2006 shooting spree targeting the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, where Naveed Afzal Haq shot six women, killing one. According to a probable cause affidavit, Haq told a 911 dispatcher, "These are Jews and I'm tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East."

In 2009, the FBI foiled a plot to detonate explosives at Riverdale Temple and Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx; four men - identifying themselves as Abdul Rahman, Daoud, Hamza, and Amin - were each convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. On an FBI surveillance video released as part of a recent documentary film, Abdul Rahman can be heard commenting on the selection of Riverdale Temple as a bomb target: "I hate those bastards... Those f***ing Jewish bastards."

So what did Rep. Murphy mean when he said that another attack against Jews on U.S. soil was preventable? That the country should step up security at Jewish sites? No. That we should confront a culture that has fostered racism and anti-Semitism? No.

Among the "preventable tragedies" in TAC's database is the story of Mansor Mohammad Asad. Mr. Asad disrupted Delta Northwest Airlines flight 2485 bound for Detroit from Miami International Airport on January 6, 2010 when he shouted "I want to kill all the Jews!" According to court documents, Asad had a lengthy prior rap sheet, which included two counts of assault on a police officer. Asad pleaded guilty to disrupting a flight, was placed on a federal "no-fly" list, and was ordered to pay the airline $27,500 in restitution.

Another story in TAC's "Preventable Tragedies Database" is that of Saudi national Yazeed Mohammed Abdulrahman Abu Nayyan. On February 21, 2012, Abu Nayyan was removed from Continental Airlines flight 1118 from Portland to Houston after invoking the name of Osama bin Laden, swinging his fist at a flight attendant, and spewing hatred
for women.
Earlier that week, Abu Nayyan led police in Oregon on a car chase, ramming into two police vehicles.

Abu Nayyan pleaded guilty to state charges of attempting to elude law enforcement and criminal mischief, as well as federal charges of interfering with a flight crew. He was ordered to pay restitution and returned to his native Saudi Arabia - where he now stands accused of the April 8, 2015 assassination of two police officers in Riyadh. Saudi officials say Abu Nayyan confessed to the killings, and they believe he acted with the assistance of the Islamic State militant group.

In a position paper entitled "No Room at the Inn," of which Dr. Torrey is the lead author, TAC also cites the 2006 Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle shootings as an avoidable consequence of public psychiatric hospital closings from 2005-2010. Rejecting claims of insanity, jurors convicted Naveed Afzal Haq in 2009 of first-degree murder, attempted
murder, unlawful imprisonment, and malicious harassment - the state's
hate crime statute.
He was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 120 years.

During a congressional hearing on
Murphy's bill on June 16, 2015, former Congressman Patrick J. Murphy
testified, "The notion that we treat these issues as moral
issues as opposed to medical issues is really the central issue
before this committee."

The fundamental flaw with the medical approach of "treating" violence is that hate crimes are more a product of what is in people's hearts than of what is in their minds.

Accused Charleston spree killer Dylann
Roof wore symbols of racist oppression, expressed hatred of another
race, and intended to strike terror in the African-American community
and ignite a race war.

Misogyny appears to have been the
motive for Isla Vista spree killer Elliot Rodger, who sought to
punish random members of a gender with death for the slight of not
having sex with him.

Rather than target a particular religion,
race or gender, misanthropic Aurora theater shooter James Holmes
hated the entire human race indiscriminately, referring
contemptuously to the people he intended to slaughter as "sheeple".

What unites these cases more than mental illness is hatred.

Claims by Murphy, Torrey, Kennedy and others that somehow modern medicine can predict or even prevent such violent acts are false on their face, and amount to nothing more than shameless promotion of their respective self-interests.

If anything, these cases argue more forcefully against their proposed mental health interventions.

Toxicology results showed Elliot Rodger had "benzodiazepines and alprazolam present within the body" at the time of his death. A recent Karolinska Institutet study found an elevated risk of homicide associated with benzodiazepines, and to a lesser extent antidepressants.

Psychiatrist Dr. Lynne Fenton testified during James Holmes' trial on June 16, 2015 that she prescribed him 150 mg of the antidepressant sertraline and .5 mg of the benzodiazepine clonazepam. District Attorney George Brauchler asked Dr. Fenton during direct examination, "Did he ever tell you that he wanted to stop the sertraline?" She replied, "No."

Medical records released as part of a recent documentary film revealed Riverdale Temple bomb plot conspirator Amin, aka Laguerre Payen, was reportedly prescribed 50 mg of the antidepressant Celexa (citalopram hydrobromide) and 100 mg of the antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate).

In defense of his client Yazeed Abu Nayyan's crimes in Oregon, attorney Mark Cogan argued in court, "The cause for all these events was a change in the medication that was made by a doctor in California."

Clearly, modern medicine has not advanced to the point where it can cure hatred or prevent violence.

Filtering hate crimes through the prism
of mental illness is problematic, for reasons President Obama has
articulated: "The
United States does not have a monopoly on crazy people. It's not the
only country that has psychosis. And yet we kill each other in these mass shootings at rates that are exponentially higher than any place else."

Mr. Gionfriddo testified that two-thirds of individuals screened on
MHA's website screen positively for mental illness. If true, this is an
alarming percentage, and is less indicative of a mental illness epidemic
than it is of the inaccuracy of screening tools used to diagnosis mental
illness. Referring to the latest version of psychiatry's Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, National Institute of Mental
Health Director Thomas Insel, M.D. wrote, "The weakness is its lack of
validity... Patients with mental disorders deserve better... That is why
NIMH will be re-orienting its research away from DSM categories."

With the unreliable and inaccurate diagnostic tools available today,
increased early identification screening of children for mental
disorders proposed in HR2646 would almost certainly exacerbate already
out-of-control misdiagnosis and over-medication of children in our
country. This is a decidedly American problem, with the rate of
diagnosis of ADHD among children twenty times higher than in other
developed countries. Geographic disparities in diagnosis rates are attributable to
subjective, unscientific diagnostic tools. In the U.S., according to
the CDC, children in Florida are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed
with and medicated for ADHD than children in California, Nevada or
Colorado.

Nowhere does the disturbing trend of misdiagnosis and wrongful medication
of children seem more manifest than in Mr. Gionfriddo's own family story. In
the Washington Post, Mr. Gionfriddo wrote, "The school’s evaluations
suggested [my son Tim] had what was then called attention deficit
disorder... And it turned out that Tim probably didn’t really have
attention deficit disorder." Nonetheless, Mr. Gionfriddo also wrote in his book, "The pediatric
neurologist started Tim on Ritalin... It turned out that neither Tim's
teacher nor we could see any difference in his behavior, attention, or
focus when he was on Ritalin. The reason, as we would discover later,
was that ADHD wasn't really his problem."

In what has now become an all-too-familiar and sad refrain involving people
put on perhaps unnecessary, the wrong or harmful psychotropic
medications, Mr. Gionfroddo reported, "On Wednesday, November 20, 1996,
my son Tim brought a gun to school." Like Mr. Gionfriddo's son who was put on the ADHD drug Ritalin,
attorney Myron May was on the ADHD drug Vyvanse when he brought a gun to his alma mater and began shooting FSU students on November 20, 2014.

While fortunately neither Mr. Gionfriddo's son or other students at his
school were harmed during that particular firearm at school incident,
after starting on methylphenidate, Tim was later reportedly arrested in
a meth lab bust. Like methamphetamine, methylphenidate (Ritalin) is also a Schedule
II controlled substance. Methylphenidate carries an FDA-mandated Black
Box warning - the strongest possible - for drug dependence.

Equally disturbing, years after Ritalin was approved and Mr.
Gionfriddo's son was placed on the drug, the FDA released a
post-marketing review, in 2006, of adverse event reports to the agency,
warning that the data demonstrated children with no risk indicators, on
regular doses of any of the stimulants approved for ADHD, experienced
hallucinations, psychosis and mania. According to minutes of the March 22, 2006 FDA Pediatric Advisory
Committee meeting, Dr. Andrew Mosholder of the FDA's Division of Drug
Risk Evaluation noted that "symptoms of psychosis or mania were
estimated to occur [on ADHD stimulants] at a rate of 2 to 5 per hundred
person-years... This rate (greater than 1%) cannot be considered
rare..." Like other children seemingly misdiagnosed with ADHD and put on
psychosis-inducing stimulants, Mr. Gionfriddo's son would eventually be
diagnosed with schizophrenia, a condition often involving
hallucinations and psychosis.

It's time for America to step off the misdiagnosis and over-medication
roller-coaster. Due to the profit motive of some and despite the good
intentions of others, early mis-indentification of mental illness and
wrongful interventions are worsening, not solving the problem. During a mental health forum sponsored by Rep. Gus Bilirakis on December 16, 2014
in Land O' Lakes, FL, the bill's author Rep. Murphy stated, "Forty percent
of the time a person with psychiatric problem [sic] is on the wrong
types or level of medication."

HR2646 is old wine (HR3717) in a new bottle. It's bad for America, and
it's bad for our kids. Parents are intelligent enough to make the right
mental health decisions and seek the right mental health care if needed
for their children. They do not need more intrusive, wildly inaccurate
and unscientific diagnostic screening thrust upon them or their children.

Our nation's over-reliance on pharmacological answers to life's
challenges is manifestly not working for our veterans and military
personnel, either. The Army's report on the 2 April 2014 Fort Hood
shootings concluded that the mental health care Spc Ivan Lopez received
did not deviate from the standard of care. Time to rethink the standard
of care, which included in Lopez's case an untested polypharmacy cocktail of the psychotropic medications Celexa, Wellbutrin, Ambien and
Lunesta. Our service
personnel and veterans deserve better than being treated as guinea pigs,
experimented upon with risky, ineffective psychotropic polypharmacy.

On
the topic of Evidence-Based Treatment (EBT), can we agree that four dead
and twelve others shot is not evidence of a good outcome of medication
management? It should be noted that Army records indicate that Spc
Lopez attended at least ten counseling sessions dutifully over ten
months prior to the shooting; met with a social worker therapist, four
psychiatrists, and a nurse practitioner; sought multiple medication
refills voluntarily on a walk-in basis (Jan 14, 2014; March 6, 2014;
March 10, 2014), had psychotropic medications in his blood stream at the
time of death per his autopsy, and had even scheduled a follow up mental
health appointment prior to his death during a walk-in visit seeking medication.

The problem is not a lack of access to mental health care, a lack of
access to medications, anosognosia, medication non-compliance or
treatment non-compliance. The nature of the problem is American
psychiatry's fascination with an as yet unproven chemical imbalance
theory whereby mental illness is genetically hardwired into
individuals. Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman's exuberant hearing testimony
espousing the benefits of psychotropic medications, suggesting they can
prevent or eliminate mental illness, should be tempered by his comments
that his faith in pharmacologic manipulations is rooted in his first LSD trip. Patrick Kennedy's impassioned testimony eschewing any moral
component of mental illness ignores man's soul, argues fatalistically
that we're all just chemical soup, and removes the element of free
will. It's no wonder depression can turn into despair, when
psychiatrists tell patients fate has dealt them a hopeless genetic hand.

Harvey Rosenthal testified in the hearing that people need to be offered
a promise of hope and recovery, and that Assisted Outpatient Treatment
(AOT) is synonymous with medication. Nowhere is this more evident than
in the push to erode the privacy rights of patients. Undermining
confidentiality, so long a foundational tenet of mental health care, is
a chilling indicator that the page is indeed being turned, some would say
forcibly, away from proven yet more time-consuming psychotherapeutic and
recovery modalities, in favor of quick but ineffective medication
management. In light of Rep. Murphy's stunning admission that doctors
are wrong about psychiatric medications forty percent of the time, we're
now going to take away patient privacy in the name of medication
compliance? To comply with the wrong medications? So that caregivers - often parents who previously forced their
children to take the wrong medications under poor
medical advice - can continue to harm their kids well into adulthood?

Let parents parent their minor children without intrusion. Let adults
make mental health care decisions for themselves. We need less, not more,
government intrusion into mental health care.

In his determination to erode privacy rights as well as the centuries-old legal protection against false imprisonment afforded by habeas corpus - based upon shaky psychiatric
diagnoses and worrisome doctor prescribing habits - Rep. Tim Murphy claims with
great dramatic effect that the mentally ill are dying with their rights
on.

Actually, they're dying with psychotropic medications in their corpses, and often taking others with them. Spc Ivan Lopez died with
antidepressants and sedatives in his body, and took three others with
him. Elliot Rodgers died with Xanax (alprazolam) in his body, and took six others
with him.
Myron May died with Vyvanse in his veins, almost taking six others
with him. Andreas Lubitz,
Germanwings co-pilot, took 149 other souls with him when, according to
the BEA's preliminary report, he committed suicide by intentionally
crashing a plane into the Alps, after being prescribed antidepressants.

In the U.S., antidepressants carry an FDA-mandated Black Box warning for
increased risk of depression and suicidal thoughts. Again, on the topic
of EBT, can we agree that 150 lost souls is not evidence of a positive
outcome of antidepressants? Can we agree that the aforementioned deadly
mass shootings are not evidence of positive outcomes of psychotropic
medications?

Ironically, as the HR2646 hearing was closing, testimony of Aurora theater shooter James
Holmes' psychiatrist Dr. Lynne Fenton was just getting underway in
Colorado. She testified that Holmes was on a psychotropic cocktail of
150 mg of Sertraline (Zoloft), .5 mg of Klonopin (Clonazepam), and 10 mg
of Propanolol. DA: "Did he ever tell you that he wanted to stop
Sertraline?" Dr. Fenton: "No."

The assertion that medication non-compliance is the reason people with a
mental illness become violent is simply not true. Medications are not
the panacea that Rep. Murphy portrays them to be, and in fact there is
credible scientific evidence to suggest that they may be doing more harm than good.

Perhaps Murphy's bill would be more aptly named the Helping Big Pharma and Mental Health Industry Act.

On January 23, 2015, the Army released its long anticipated report on the second fatal mass shootings at Fort Hood that occurred on April 2, 2014. In support of the report, the Army simultaneously released five appendices contained in nineteen other files pertaining to Specialist Ivan Lopez's deadly shooting rampage.

In its findings, the Army concluded, "There was no evidence that any medication, or combination of medications, caused suicidal and/or homicidal thoughts in SPC Lopez-Lopez." The Army continued: "There was no evidence that SPC Lopez-Lopez’s polypharmacy positive status would have triggered a high-risk flagging..."

In a very literal sense, there was no evidence contained in the report that any medication or combination of medications, known as polypharmacy, caused suicidal or homicidal ideation in Spc Lopez - because the Army made sure of it, seemingly redacting from its report every shred of evidence that could possibly point to such a conclusion. Or did they?

Names of prescribed medications are obscured in the section of the report discussing Spc Lopez's behavioral health, with entire paragraphs blacked out. As with Spc Lopez's medication history, the Army did not want to reveal which medications showed up in Spc Lopez's toxicology results. Rather than stating that there were no medications present in Spc Lopez's post-mortem, the Army stated that the presence of medications was not abnormal, ie. expected and at therapeutic levels: "The autopsy results did not reveal any illegal drugs or the abnormal presence of any other medications in SPC Lopez-Lopez's blood."

In addition to large portions of the report and accompanying appendices being blacked out, notably missing from the redacted evidence was the entire Exhibits Tab "H" of Appendix 4, relating to Spc Ivan Lopez's psychiatric diagnosis, mental health treatment, and prescribed medications.

Likewise, Exhibit H-11 is referred to in a footnote as "Lopez-Lopez Polypharmacy Timeline."

From comments by Lt. Gen. Mark Milley in a press conference shortly after the shootings, we know that Spc Lopez had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and had been prescribed and was taking Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants. Given Lt. Gen. Milley's loose lips in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, it is unclear why the Army would then go to such lengths to conceal - from the families of the fallen, the survivors, our brave military personnel, and the American public - which, what combination of, and what doses of psychotropic medications Ivan Lopez was taking leading up to and at the time of his shooting rampage.

Regardless of the Army's motivation for going to such lengths to hide information that people living in a free country have a right to know, one conclusion is unavoidable: the Army was not exhaustive enough in its efforts to suppress the facts behind the second Fort Hood shootings.

From footnotes in the report and a supporting appendix, concerned parents intent on unveiling the hidden temporal link between psychotropics and mass shootings in America have pieced together the polypharmacy regimen prescribed to Spc Ivan Lopez.

Perhaps not unlike a criminal who subconsciously wants to get caught, the Army left a bread crumb trail of clues for anyone bothering to sift through thousands of pages of evidence (which apparently excludes most, if not all, of the media).

Four footnotes in the section of the Army's report discussing Spc Ivan Lopez's Behavioral Health (BH) refer to Exhibits H-7 through H-10, describing the exhibits as FDA labels for drugs.

Exhibit H-7 is referred to as "FDA Label - Celexa."

Exhibit H-8 is referred to as "FDA Label -" followed by the first letter "W" or "V" with the remainder of the drug name redacted. So now we know to keep an eye out for a second medication that starts with either a "W" or a "V". Exhibits H-9 and H-10, respectively, are referred to as "FDA Label -" with the names of the medications completely redacted.

In Appendix 3, the Army painstakingly defined the plethora of terms used elsewhere in the report. Among the definitions include descriptions of Ambien, Ambien CR, Bupropion, Celexa, Citalopram, Lunesta, Polypharmacy (ya think?), Wellbutrin, and Zolpidem.

The appearance of Celexa/Citalopram in the list of definitions is consistent with the footnote referring to Exhibit H-7 as "FDA Label - Celexa." The appearance of Wellbutrin (bupropion) in the list of definitions is consistent with the footnote referring to H-8 as "FDA Label -" followed by a mostly redacted medication name starting with the letter "W" or "V". Not surprisingly, there are only two other psychotropic medications, Ambien and Lunesta, appearing in the list of definitions, corresponding presumably to Exhibits H-9 and H-10, FDA drug labels for the two other unnamed drugs.

In addition to inadvertently divulging, despite significant black ink expended, how many and which psychotropic medications Spc Lopez was prescribed and taking (remember the toxicology results revealed the normal/expected, ie. not abnormal, presence of medications plural), the Army perhaps again unwittingly disclosed in Appendix 5 just how extensive Spc Lopez's mental health treatment actually was, and the myriad of Army mental health providers who examined and/or treated Spc Lopez.

Appendix 5 indicates that investigators reviewed "[m]edical records notes by the following providers constitut[ing] the majority of Specialist Lopez-Lopez's significant medical events," then lists a number of mental health providers at Fort Bliss, Fort Leonard Wood and Fort Hood, and footnotes the dates from medical records notes corresponding to when Spc Lopez met with each of the respective mental health providers.

Over a ten month period from June 14, 2013 to March 10, 2014, Spc Lopez appears to have met with a half dozen mental health providers on at least ten occasions, possibly meeting with two providers on the same date on two of those occasions. Records show Spc Lopez met with a Social Worker therapist, four psychiatrists, and a nurse practitioner who refilled prescriptions.

Army records indicate Spc Lopez visited an Embedded Behavioral Health (EBH) Social Worker therapist at Fort Bliss on June 14, 2013, July 31, 2013, October 2, 2013, and October 28, 2013; an EBH psychiatrist at Fort Bliss on June 20, 2013; an EBH psychiatrist at Fort Bliss on July 31, 2013, and August 27, 2013; an EBH psychiatrist at Fort Bliss on September 24, 2013, October 28, 2013, November 15, 2013, and November 19, 2013; a nurse practitioner at Fort Leonard Wood on 24 January 2014 to refill prescriptions; and a psychiatrist at Fort Hood on March 10, 2014 to evidently request more medication. At the time of the shootings, Spc Lopez had a follow-up BH appointment scheduled for May 19, 2014.

During his last BH appointment on March 10, 2014, according to the Fort Hood psychiatrist interviewed as part of the investigation,
Spc Lopez "requested [redacted] and [redacted]." Predictably, the Army blacked out
what medications Spc Lopez requested and was provided during this last visit only
two weeks prior to his shooting rampage.

Army records demonstrate that Spc Lopez sought mental health care of his own accord, followed up with mental health treatment as prescribed (both on a scheduled and walk-in basis), and requested refills of prescribed medications.

These facts run counter to the narrative oft posited by Pharma-funded politicians whereby mass shooting tragedies are preventable - if only the shooters had access to mental health care, cooperated with their treatment, and complied with prescribed medications.

What also emerges from the Army's selective redaction of its report and appendices is that they were only concerned with redacting a certain type of PHI - Pharma Harmful Information, as opposed to Protected Health Information. In Appendix Tab "E," for example, SPC Lopez's wife stated that he "had a physical profile which expired, but he still suffered from pain on his back and he would still have to conduct physical training per the chain of command's orders."

It says a lot about how invested the Army is in its close relationship with Big Pharma when it does not bother redacting references to Spc Lopez's physical injury and pain, but does everything in its power to conceal Spc Lopez's mental health diagnoses and prescribed medications.

The Army's findings, based on thousands of pages of evidence, are a stinging indictment of the failings of medicalized psychiatry in America, which could alternatively be referred to as chemical mood/behavior management. The Army's conclusion that Spc Ivan Lopez received the best possible mental health care was emphatic: "After an independent review of the medical and behavioral health care and treatment provided to SPC Lopez-Lopez, no deviation from standard care occurred in any component of the medical treatment continuum."

If the determination of independent psychiatrists that no deviation from the standard of care occurred in the case of Spc Lopez is correct, then it must also follow logically that psychiatry's standard of care cannot prevent mass shooting tragedies.

The fact that American psychiatry - with its almost singular reliance on chemical mood/behavior management - cannot prevent mass shootings has not prevented Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) and other Pharma-funded politicians from attempting to force American taxpayers to part with billions of dollars under just such a false promise. With the pharmaceutical lobby now the largest by far in the U.S., spending over $230M last year to pitch their agenda to Congress, some have begun to question whether we're now living in the United States of Pharma.

In addition to revealing the impotence of psychiatry and its chemical mood/behavior management to prevent mass shootings, the Army's report and appendices shed more light on who Ivan Lopez was as a person.

Spc Lopez's wife described her husband as "a calmed person who was
always quiet
and she was the one in the relationship who was outspoken... [She]
stated
that SPC Lopez-Lopez was not confrontational and when he was mad he just
kept it to himself." Spc Lopez's wife further stated that her husband
"was not a violent person. [She] stated in one occasion she punched him
after an argument and he did not hit her. She stated he was a calmed
person."

A childhood friend who knew Ivan Lopez since the seventh grade told investigators that "he did not think Specialist Lopez-Lopez would do something like this. He said on multiple occasions that Specialist Lopez-Lopez never joked about hurting himself or others... [He] did not see anything that would suggest Specialist Lopez-Lopez would take the actions he did."

When asked to describe Ivan Lopez, another person who knew him since he was fourteen years old described him as "Humble, honest, kind, good father, loving, for me he was like a son."

A Private at Fort Hood who was friends with Spc Lopez told investigators: "He was always a happy guy. Every time I talked to him, he never had anything bad to say. I never saw him angry and he never talked about violence."

A Sergeant who got to know Spc Lopez during a reclassification course at Fort Leonard Wood told investigators: "To me, nothing stood out about Spc Lopez that would make him a high risk Soldier. I never saw him get mad or angry during our time together. Sometimes I would ask if everything was alright, but he never seemed angry. He did not seem depressed."

According to people who lived and worked with him, Ivan Lopez was not an angry, violent, or depressed person, but rather a decent human being.

So what could compel an even-tempered individual to go on a deadly shooting rampage?

A peek inside Ivan Lopez's medicine cabinet tells the story...

Spc Lopez took bupropion hydrochloride, better known by its brand name Wellbutrin, which is prescribed for depression and off-label for smoking cessation. The label for Wellbutrin contains a black-box warning of increased risk of suicidal thinking and suicidal behavior, lists agitation and hostility as being among the most common adverse reactions, and warns families and caregivers to immediately report emerging agitation or irritability to healthcare providers.

Bupropion hydrochloride, when prescribed for smoking cessation under the lesser-known brand name Zyban, also carries an FDA-mandated warning of homicidal ideation.

It was reported that former Assistant District Attorney Myron May was also prescribed a cocktail of psychotropic drugs including the antidepressant Wellbutrin prior to his mass shooting rampage on the campus of Florida State University on November 20, 2014.

Andrea Yates was also on a cocktail of psychotropic drugs including the antidepressant Wellbutrin when she drowned her five children -John, Paul, Luke, Mary, and Noah - on June 20, 2001.

Homicide has been reported to the FDA as a side-effect of Wellbutrin and bupropion hydrochloride seventeen times.

Likewise, the label for citalopram hydrobromide, better known by the brand name Celexa, which Spc Lopez was prescribed, carries a black-box warning of increased risk of suicidal thinking and suicidal behavior, agitation, aggressiveness, hostility and impulsivity.

Homicide has been reported to the FDA as a side-effect of Celexa and citalopram fifty-eight times. There have also been forty-three reports to the FDA of homicide as a side-effect of its chemical cousin, escitalopram oxalate, better known as Lexapro.

Spc Lopez was also prescribed zolpidem tartrate, better known as Ambien, to treat insomnia. The Ambien label states that "worsening of depression and suicidal thinking may occur." According to the Ambien label, other reported side-effects include agitation, hallucination, abnormal thinking, and aggressiveness.

Homicide has been reported to the FDA as a side-effect of Ambien and zolpidem tartrate over one hundred times.

In addition to Ambien, Spc Lopez was also prescribed the sleep-aid eszopiclone, better known as Lunesta. Like Ambien, the Lunesta label warns that "worsening of depression and suicidal thinking may occur." The Lunesta label also contains the following chilling warning: "A variety of abnormal thinking and behavior changes have been reported to occur in association with the use of sedative/hypnotics. Some of these changes may be characterized by decreased inhibition (e.g., aggressiveness and extroversion that seem out of character)... Other reported behavioral changes have included bizarre behavior, agitation, hallucinations, and depersonalization."

Homicide has been reported to the FDA as a side-effect of Lunesta and zopiclone five times.

Three of the four drugs prescribed to Spc Lopez (Celexa, Wellbutrin, Ambien) appear on a list of 31 drugs Harvard and Wake Forest doctors identified as being associated with an elevated risk of violence based on a study of FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) reports.

Each of the psychotropic drugs prescribed to and taken by Spc Lopez carry warnings of increased risk of suicidal behavior and suicidal thinking, depression, agitation, aggressiveness, irritability, hostility, etc. If any one of the aforementioned psychotropic drugs could cause someone to act aggressively out of character and/or suicidally, one can only imagine what they could drive a person to do if taken concomitantly.

The fact of the matter is that we are left to our imagination as to the possible adverse effects of such reckless polypharmacy, because these psychotropic drugs have never been tested to see if they can be taken together safely. What the Army is doing effectively amounts to experimentation on our soldiers.

From the Army's report and appendices, there is no doubt that Spc Lopez was on a multi-drug regimen qualifying as polypharmacy by their own definition. The most conservative interpretation of the available data would be that Spc Lopez was on at least one antidepressant and one sleep medication at a time, and that the Army either prescribed a different antidepressant and a different sleep aid because the first ones prescribed were not achieving the desired results, or worse that the Army prescribes different drugs in the same class (e.g. antidepressants or sleep aids) interchangeably.

In either of the above two scenarios, there would be a period of increased risk withdrawing from the old antidepressant and the old sleep aid while starting a new antidepressant and a new sleep aid, since both stopping and starting a psychotropic drug increases the patient's risk profile. Of course, the increased risk is further multiplied with the stopping and starting of multiple psychotropic drugs.

Another nightmare scenario is that the Army doubled up on the antidepressants and/or sleep aids when they were not working by themselves.

Odds are that we will never know which of the above three scenarios produced the horrific tragedy that occurred at Fort Hood on April 2, 2014, due to the Army's lack of transparency.

What we do know for sure is that the Army's management of psychotropic polypharmacy is haphazard at best. "After the shooting incident," wrote a psychiatrist and Program Director of the Center for Forensic Behavioral Sciences, "only two commanders recalled having ever seen a polypharmacy list of names. The hospital is again short staffed on managing the polypharmacy project because the pharmacist in charge deployed."